I’m going to be honest. Meditation has never been my thing. I feel guilty just saying that, as a psychologist, who regularly recommends meditation to my clients. But I’ve never practiced what I preached. Until now.
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Several months ago I joined a women’s wellness group led by my inspiring friend Colleen Hieber. Each month we focus on integrating a new habit into our lives to promote our health and well-being. This month was meditation.
I know all the research out there on the benefits of meditation, and I’ve seen it work right in front of my eyes. And yet, when it came time to carve out a few minutes of my day to work on building this habit, I was suddenly busy.
I just went about my life, tackling all the to-dos and forcing my eyes open at night until they bled, craving just a few more minutes of “me time.” Doing all the things, except meditation.
With all of my real and fabricated busyness, I had fallen behind in my commitment to watching my pre-recorded group calls. Because, deep down I really didn’t want to watch! I just didn’t want to be told to start this habit that I was actively avoiding. I don’t even know WHY my resistance was so strong. But it was.
And so I sat there staring at my phone one night prior to bed, presenting myself with a choice. Should I force myself to watch this call? Or should I just get on with it and start the habit and be DONE with this battle?
I spent several minutes perusing the app store looking at all the meditation app options (there’s a lot!). I downloaded one, listened for a few seconds, and decided it wasn’t right. Then I went back to the app store (hello avoidance), perused some more, downloaded a few more apps, and finally settled on Insight Timer. I looked at all the various forms of support the app provides (guided meditations specific to various desires, music to inspire, and a timer to set structure for yourself if you decide to go it alone).
Ultimately I selected a guided meditation that was fairly brief, centered on a topic I was interested in, and had a voice I found soothing. And then there was nothing left to do but to just start meditating.
And you know what? I liked it! Actually I REALLY liked it. It was just… peaceful. And reflective. And sort of indulgent. In fact, it didn’t even really feel like what I had come to believe meditation had to feel like. And so, the next night, I tried the same thing. And the next night. And the next night. And now I’m happy to say that I’m 15 days into my meditation routine!
This was such an easy, enjoyable thing that I started wondering if I was really doing it right. So I did a google search of guided vs. silent meditation to see if maybe I was just fooling myself into thinking guided meditation was still meditation. I found my way to the Mindful 15 website where the first thing it says is:
“The best meditation is the one you actually do.”
Yep. Nailed it. Though I went on to read that there are added benefits to doing the silent variety, the guided meditation was pleasant enough to bring me back to the practice over and over again. It’s allowed me to cultivate the beginnings of a healthy habit. So who cares right now how many extra benefits are found in silent meditation, because the fact is that doing any form of meditation is far more beneficial than doing none.
So let me just make this crystal clear, in case I hadn’t yet… I’m not doing this meditation thing perfectly. I don’t have a meditation room, I’m not doing it first thing in the morning, and I’m not doing it for 20 minutes. In fact, I’m not even doing it sitting up. I’m doing full-on lay down flat on my back Savasana style (for all of you yogis). How I’m doing it, though, has been an important piece in my motivation to return. Building this habit in and of itself is hard enough. By adapting it in ways that appeal to me, I’m making it that much more likely that I’m going to continue doing it.
In fact, I even started doing it outside of my chosen right-before-bed meditation time.
My in-laws had been staying with us for a bit, so I found myself with the very welcomed, but unusual experience of having time alone to get ready for my work day. Typically, I would have jumped at the chance to watch some mindless TV or catch up on the latest news cycle. But today I was pulled back to meditation.
Now, though this alone time was wonderful, I still had to accomplish getting myself ready within it. And so anything I chose to do at that time had to happen alongside my tasks of getting ready. I can’t say that I’ve ever considered doing meditation while getting ready before. And I’m sure that there are plenty of meditation purists out there who would shudder at the thought. But you know what? I used the time to stop myself from time-traveling (a tendency most of us have that gets us caught up in the emotions associated with our past and our future), and instead I just focused on the beautiful music and my breath. And it helped me glide into my day in such a better place!
So, why should you try it? Well, there’s many reasons. But here are a few:
- Meditation helps you reduce your stress
- It can prevent over-reactions to stressful situations
- It helps you keep your emotions in check
- Meditation improves focus
- It creates increased self-acceptance
- Meditation improves sleep
- It facilitates increased compassion for others
- It helps to reduce anxiety
How many of these would benefit you? If you’re like me, you can probably check off a lot, if not all of them.
But, I also know first hand that understanding the benefits of something does not necessarily tip the scales in favor of actually doing that thing. And will power has been determined to be a limited resource, so it’s not something you can rely on. Instead, adding meditation into your life requires you to find the easiest, most compelling version of it and start there.
Maybe you start with 1 minute right before you get out of bed in the morning. Or maybe you start off using an app that guides you along the way. Maybe you start with a moving meditation. Maybe you start with a partner, or maybe you start by doing it alongside your kids. It doesn’t matter where or how you start. It just matters that you start.
So notice the barriers. Allow yourself to observe all the excuses you come up with to talk yourself out of it. And then just make the choice to start.
QUICK LINKS:
When Your Magic Wand is Broken
How to Radically Accept Life’s Lemons… And Then Move On
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Dana Basu, PsyD is a licensed clinical psychologist at EverGROW therapy and founder of Everything But Crazy, an online resource for parents. She provides individual therapy, support groups, and online resources for parents in Orange County and throughout the state of California via online therapy. She specializes in working with the highly sensitive person and people with difficult childhood experiences, trauma, parenting stress, and chronic guilt.